SQL

Many times it occurs that an inappropriate execution plan is used which was produced by using the current values of bind variables provided at the time of the hard parse. But later on the variables change so much that another execution plan would be required. Unfortunately there is no automatism in 9i and 10g that would spot this fact. Oracle finally resolved this problem in 11g.

The trick is to virtually set the statistics for the object which is involved in the query. What I mean by virtually is that I read the current statistics and store the same statistics back what makes no harm but the side effect is that the cursor is invalidated and hence it will be re-parsed and hopefully this time optimized for the right values of bind variables.

Enrollment is open for the course taught by Christopher J. Date that we'll host 26–28 January in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. For many of us, this will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to sit in a classroom for three days with one of the pioneers who created the field we live in each day.

I'm looking forward to this course myself. It is so easy to use Oracle in non-relational ways. But not understanding how to use SQL relationally leads to countless troubles and unnecessary complexities. Chris's focus in this course will be the discipline to use Oracle in a truly relational way, the mastery of which will make your applications faster, easier to prove, and more fun to write, maintain, and ehnance.

Note added 3 April 2009: When I wrote this post, we were counting down toward 2 April as the date for our preliminary go/no-go decision. That date is now behind us, and we have made the preliminary decision to Go. We are accepting further enrollments. —Cary Millsap

SQL and I never really got along too well. When I first joined Oracle Corporation in 1989, I was new to relational databases. I had done one hierarchical database project in college. I enjoyed the project ok, but it wasn't something I ever wanted to do again. When I joined Oracle, I didn't know much about relational technology or SQL. In my formative first couple of years at Oracle, though, I just never learned to like the SQL language. Prior to my Oracle career, I designed languages and wrote compilers for a living. From a language design standpoint, it just seemed that SQL (at least "Oracle SQL") could have become something really cool, but it didn't. For Oracle to treat an empty string as NULL, for example, is a decision which I still can't believe made it into the light of day...

I had a lot of respect over the years for the people I met who knew how to make SQL do what they wanted it to do. Dominic Delmolino was one of the first people I ever met who could make SQL do things I had no idea it could do. I'm still amazed when I see the things that Tom Kyte can do with SQL. I was never one of the SQL people.